Farmers: Sign up for the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) Before February 27, 2015

Farmers: Sign up for the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) Before February 27, 2015

posted on February 13, 2015 11:19am

From our friends at the Michigan Voices for Good Food Policy

What is CSP?

CSP is the nation’s largest conservation program by acreage and is widely popular among farmers and ranchers. Since the program began in 2009, nearly 70 million acres of farm and ranch land have been enrolled in the program. CSP rewards producers for the conservation and environmental benefits they produce on their working agricultural lands. All private agricultural land, including cropland, pasture, and rangeland, is eligible to enroll in CSP.

Details on this year’s program are available for free in an Information Alert published this week by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Farmers and ranchers must submit initial applications to their local NRCS office by Feb 27 to have their applications considered for 2015. Applications will be scored and ranked based on farmers’ current and planned on-farm conservation activities, and the applications offering the highest level of environmental benefits will be awarded CSP contracts.

If so, then this is the last year of your five-year CSP contract and thus you now have the opportunity to sign-up to renew your participation in the program for 2016-2020. You must apply to renew by March 31. Refer to our Information Alert for further information.